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Because Weimar Germany showed us the alternative. "Democracy" is either this sort of illusion draped over expert technocracy, or it's fascism.
Plus, do they really need it? Because who cares if they trample the plebs, changes in the nature of military force, law enforcement, surveillance, financial control, etc. means they no longer have to worry about the masses rising up against them; they're free to trample the plebs at will.
Yes, and what's wrong with that?
Sure, but there's a third option: we don't get out of this. We fully transition to "hard managerialism," and it maintains a hold on power (until civilization collapses). After all, the Soviet Union lasted for decades after it was already clear that the promised socialist utopia wasn't coming. They also had a clear rival system in the west, which matters for a number of reasons. First, it meant that there was a clear alternative model one could point to for comparison. Secondly, it's easier to get people to admit the current system isn't working and let it end when you have a clear answer for what to do instead. Third, while the military build-up of the Cold War arms race with the west was part of what defeated them, it also prolonged their survival in some ways, because it put limits on how far from contact with reality they could get. It also placed geographic limits on the resources available, and on how much they could damage in their fall.
The GAE, as global hegemon, however, will not die so easily. There's no obvious answer to the question "if not this, then what?" Where on Earth can you point to that's doing better than the "hard managerial" current-year American regime? After all, as N.S. Lyons's "The China Convergence" notes, the whole world, including America's top geopolitical rivals (such as they are, given their various issues), are either converging upon or have already reached this same hard managerial system. The plebs might have a lot of complaints, but so long as the Cathedral can keep them convinced that it's the best humanity can do, or least prevent the serious complainers from coalescing around any single alternative — and crushing by state force those who try — nothing is changing.
Further, we don't have a Cold War to limit our detachment from reality — despite the Ukraine and Israel conflicts and fears around Taiwan, the "competency crisis" rolls on unabated. Because which is easier, fixing problems like crumbling infrastructure, immigrant crime, falling planes, and so on; or convincing people that these are no big deal, or at least not problems to be blamed on the state. 'Islamic terror attacks are just part of living in a big modern city' and all that. They say that to someone with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Well, to a regime with a vast system of narrative manufacture and control like the Cathedral (and steeped in postmodernism), every problem looks like a public relations problem.
Suppose you're a shady used car salesman with "the gift of gab", and you've got this lemon of a vehicle, a real clunker, on your hands that you need to sell off. Well, you could spend a whole lot of time and effort trying to figure out what all is wrong with it and attempting to address them with your meager mechanical skills… or you can spend a lot of money hiring a mechanic to so that for you… or you can try to cheaply cover over the most visible issues, slap on a coat of paint, and then use all your skills of persuasion to con some poor schmuck into buying the thing.
Since the GAE is global, the resources it can potentially call upon to prop itself up are far less limited than those the USSR had. Sure, it can't stave off collapse forever, but like a dying star, it will expand and engulf as it dies. Expect the crushing of any attempt by a true rival system to emerge. Expect also "looting" to keep the plates spinning — both domestically of civilizational "seed corn," and of resources more broadly abroad. (We're already doing it to a significant degree population-wise, no?)
So, yes, the Soviet Union collapsed. And if we follow them into maintaining a "hard managerial" regime, so will we. But it will take far longer, be far more catastrophic, and will almost certainly take the entirety of global civilization with it when it goes. Long after our current (mostly childless) elites are gone, so, even if they recognize this, why should they care? Why sacrifice their personal power, in the here and now, for a distant future that won't affect them or anyone they care about?
See above.
In other words, a fascist takeover. I can't see our current elites doing anything other than using every tool and bit of power at their disposal to prevent this.
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